University of California Adopts Statement Condemning Anti-Semitism

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Protesting students at a University of California Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco on Wednesday. The board was accused of trying to stifle opposition to Israeli policies.CreditCreditEric Risberg/Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — When the University of California’s Board of Regents unanimously adopted a statement condemning anti-Semitism on its campuses, it became the first public university system to do so since the push for economic boycotts of Israel emerged on campuses across the nation.

But the measure — an attempt to combat hostility toward Jewish students amid this growing opposition to Israel — softened a proposed flat-out condemnation of anti-Zionism, or opposition to the creation of a Jewish state. And it seems unlikely to quell battles that have rocked campuses here and across the nation. Even as the measure was unanimously approved by the university’s governing body on Thursday, objections were raised from across the political spectrum. Pro-Palestinian groups complained that it was designed to stifle opposition to Israeli policies. Academics worried that it would impinge on free speech. And Jewish organizations, while praising the measure as an important first step, said it did not go far enough in addressing hostility they said Jews have faced on University of California campuses.

In the end, the Board of Regents dropped from the final resolution a direct condemnation of anti-Zionism, language that had prompted an explosive debate about free speech in one of the country’s most vaunted public university systems. Instead, the final language simply read: “Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California.”

No penalties were outlined for those who violate the policy.

Still, Dima Khalidi, the director of Palestine Legal, an advocacy group based in Oakland, said that pro-Israeli groups had “succeeded in convincing the regents that Palestine advocacy is inherently anti-Semitic, and should be condemned.” She said the regents’ action was even more troubling, given the intense scrutiny that Muslims are facing in the current climate.

“It’s very clear that they have as a goal a restriction of political speech criticizing Israel and its policies,” she said.

But Norman J. Pattiz, a regent who helped write the measure, argued that a resolution specifically addressing anti-Semitism was necessary because of what he suggested was a double standard: While attacks on immigrants or Muslims are usually quickly condemned by the universities, he said, “it seems to be different for the Jewish community.”

“When I was a kid — I’m 73 years old now — when people wanted to attack me, they called me a dirty Jew,” Mr. Pattiz said. “Today, you don’t hear that as much as you hear things like ‘Zionist pig.’ ”

Across the country, the growing calls to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel — a movement known as “B.D.S.”— has led to emotional battles on one campus after another. Following student votes on divestment on several campuses, swastikas have been painted on the doors of Jewish fraternities. But supporters of Palestinians say accusations of anti-Semitism are being used to silence any opposition to Israel.

Some of the most bitter fighting has taken place in the University of California system, where nearly all of the student government councils have approved divestment proposals. However, no universities have actually divested.

The regents said that they felt their report, “Principles Against Intolerance,” was needed to help ease hostility against Jewish students that has arisen on a number of campuses amid the growing opposition to Israel over the country’s treatment of Palestinians.

“Expressions of anti-Semitism are more coded and difficult to identify,” the report said. “In particular, opposition to Zionism is often expressed in ways that are not simply statements of disagreement over politics and policy, but also assertions of prejudice and intolerance toward Jewish people and culture.”

At the Berkeley campus, anti-Semitic graffiti — “Zionists should be sent to the gas chamber” — appeared on the wall of a bathroom in a university building. At the University of California, Los Angeles, one student was questioned about how she could be impartial on a judicial board, given that she was “very active in the Jewish community.”

“B.D.S. is in virtually all of its aspects anti-Semitic,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a Hebrew lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and one of the founders of the Amcha Initiative, a group that combats anti-Semitism on campuses and that pushed for the University of California resolution. She said students now faced “classic anti-Semitism merged with a new anti-Zionism. These things are so intertwined. Students who are not even openly supportive of the Jewish state are being targeted because of their perceived support.”

She added that the university was the first to specifically recognize “that there are forms of anti-Zionism that are anti-Semitic. That’s huge.”

Mr. Pattiz added that the compromise statement clearly distinguished between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

But many did not agree, saying that the regents were effectively trying to quiet a debate about Israel and Palestine that had been going on for generations.

“This is the culmination of a campaign on behalf of pro-Israel organizations to equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism,” said Tallie Ben Daniel, an academic council coordinator for Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports the B.D.S. movement. “There are people who see any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. That erases the very real moral problems that people have with the policies of Israel.”

Omar Zahzah, a graduate student of Palestinian descent at U.C.L.A., said any condemnation of anti-Zionism had personal implications for him: His relatives were displaced during the 1948 war that helped establish the modern Jewish state, and he wanted to continue to tell his family’s story.

“Campuses remain a hotbed of repression for this type of discussion, even as debates about Palestine are becoming a mainstream issue,” Mr. Zahzah said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: University of California Adopts Statement Condemning Anti-Semitism. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe